RESEARCHER'S DIGEST Technology in careers and employability work

RESEARCHER'S DIGEST

DR JULIA YATES, Senior Lecturer in Organisational Psychology at City, University of London, shares a digest of research related to technology in careers and employability work. 01

COACHING WITH AI

Graßmann, C., & Schermuly, C. C. (2021). Coaching With Artificial Intelligence: Concepts and Capabilities. Human Resource Development Review, 20(1), 106-126.

This paper hints at a brave new world to come, in which careers advisers are entirely replaced by bots. Artificial intelligence (AI) coaching is described as a machine-assisted, systematic process that aims to help clients set professional goals and identify solutions. There are some obvious pluses to the idea of AI coaching (an anonymous, accessible and cheap alternative to face-to-face coaching). But could it ever offer a high-quality service? The authors of this paper had a go at mapping AI capabilities on to the different steps of coaching to see whether AI coaching could ever cover all the stages of a coaching session. They looked at problem identification, developing goals, generating solutions, consideration of consequences, targeting the most feasible solution, implementing the solution and evaluation. They concluded that AI could make a reasonable stab at most of the required steps but would not be able to do the early stages when a coach tries to understand a client’ s situation and help them to identify their own goals. Nevertheless, the authors concluded that coaches might be able to hand their clients over to the AI programme part way through the coaching process. The second thing the authors did was to see whether AI could mimic the aspects of coaching that have been shown to make the biggest impact, most specifically, developing the working alliance. Here, the authors made quite a good case, backed up with what seems to good quality empirical evidence from the world of therapy, that clients can establish a genuine bond with their AI virtual agent, which develops over time. I’ ve got to admit that I remain a little sceptical, but let’ s see what other research emerges.

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TECHNOLOGY-ASSISTED COUNSELLING

Zainudin, Z. N., Hassan, S. A., Talib, M. A., Aniza, N., Ahmad, Y. M. Y., & Asri, A. S. (2020). TechnologyAssisted Career Counselling: Application, Advantages and Challenges as Career Counselling Services and Resources. Sciences, 10(11), 67-93.

These authors conducted a systematic literature review of the advantages and challenges of using technology-assisted career counselling, in which they looked at the findings of 30 existing research papers and summarised the themes. The studies included video conferencing career counselling, the use of social media, online group interventions, e-guidance and computer-assisted guidance programmes. In terms of advantages, the authors found that practitioners and clients valued the way that web services could get to groups of students who wouldn ’t usually come to a careers service, the opportunity for students to access support whenever they need it, and the instant responses. The challenges the authors identified were more to do with the quality of the support that could be given online. They questioned the quality of information offered and were concerned that urgent needs of clients might not be picked up. They also highlighted concerns that not all students would have the access, or the skills required to make full use of the services.

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WEB-BASED THERAPY

Kiuru, N., Puolakanaho, A., Lappalainen, P., Keinonen, K., Mauno, S., Muotka, J., & Lappalainen, R. (2021). Effectiveness of a web-based acceptance and commitment therapy program for adolescent career preparation: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of vocational behavior, 127, 103578.

I am really pleased to be able to include this paper as it offers some high-quality empirical support for an approach that I think has much to offer the careers world. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (pronounced as one word ACT) is an approach to helping people manage the impact of anxiety. In some ways it is quite similar to the more familiar CBT, but instead of trying to encourage clients to replace their negative thoughts with positive ones, ACT acknowledges that sometimes this is just too hard. Instead, ACT aims to help change the impact that those thoughts have on a person ’ s behaviour. This paper describes a randomised controlled trial, in Finland, that tested the impact of a web-based ACT intervention, comparing the impact of the intervention on its own with the impact of the same ACT intervention accompanied by face-to-face career counselling. They found that the interventions both increased students ’ selfefficacy and lowered their career insecurity, as measured both immediately after the intervention and six months down the line, and that girls, particularly, benefitted from the added face-toface support. Although this is a very interesting and relevant study, it does come with a caveat. The interventions lasted for five weeks, and even the web-based group had regular text conversations with their career coach throughout, so whether this could ever be practical within our career service contexts is a moot point.

ENHANCING VIRTUAL LEARNING

Greenhow, C., & Galvin, S. (2020). Teaching with social media: Evidence-based strategies for making remote higher education less remote. Information and Learning Sciences.

With so many career services offering taught employability modules, and so many of those now being offered online, this paper offers what might be some useful ideas on using social media to enhance virtual learning. Evidence demonstrates that students are perfectly able to learn as well, or even better online as in person. However, we know that in the virtual classroom, students miss out on developing the personal connections with each other and with the teachers, which allow them to feel fully supported, to ask for help and to enhance their enjoyment of their learning. This paper looks at the idea of using social media as mechanism for developing these relationships virtually. The authors highlight that social media has a number of features that have the potential to help with this. They suggest that teachers could use personal profiles as a way to get to know their students, taking advantage of the informality of sites such as Facebook for relationship-building, and using social media for collaborative content creation. The message is that when integrated thoughtfully within online learning, social media can help students and teachers stay connected while apart, enhance students ’ engagement and make remote learning seem less remote.

If you would like further details about any of the research featured in this round-up, please email julia.yates.1@city.ac.uk